Five platforms. No default answer.
The platform question gets answered by what's already installed, what your maintenance team already knows, and the licensing model that fits your ongoing budget — not by which vendor we'd rather sell.
Ignition
Ignition's unlimited licensing model (per-server rather than per-tag or per-client) makes it the platform we reach for most often on multi-site work, where a per-tag license from a legacy vendor would scale cost linearly with exactly the growth you want. Its web-native architecture means operators can open a Perspective screen from a browser on-site or off, without a dedicated client install on every machine.
We use Ignition for SCADA, MES (via the Ignition MES modules), and edge-to-cloud reporting through native MQTT/Sparkplug B support — often on the same project, on the same licence. It's our default recommendation for green-field SCADA builds and for clients consolidating multiple ageing SCADA platforms onto one system.
Siemens
Siemens remains the standard on a significant share of Australian process and manufacturing plants, particularly where the original equipment was specified as part of a European-designed process package. TIA Portal's integrated engineering environment across PLC, HMI, and drive configuration is a genuine efficiency advantage on sites that are already standardised on the S7 hardware family.
We work across S7-1200 and S7-1500 controller families, WinCC for SCADA and HMI, and TIA Portal for integrated engineering — most commonly on renewable energy plant control, food and beverage batch systems, and manufacturing lines where Siemens drives and motors are already the site standard.
Rockwell Automation
Rockwell's ControlLogix and CompactLogix platforms, engineered in Studio 5000, are the incumbent standard across a large share of Australian water, mining, and process infrastructure — often the result of decisions made a decade or more ago that we work within rather than relitigate. PlantPAx, Rockwell's process automation library, gives us a tested starting point for standard process objects (valves, pumps, PID loops) rather than building every object from a blank canvas.
We use Rockwell most often on brownfield process control upgrades, substation and utility RTU integration, and mining process control, typically paired with FactoryTalk View or FactoryTalk Historian for the supervisory and data layer.
Beckhoff
Beckhoff's TwinCAT runtime turns standard industrial PC hardware into a deterministic real-time controller, which makes it a strong fit for high-speed machine control where a traditional PLC's scan time becomes the limiting factor — packaging lines, motion-heavy equipment, and machine builders who need tighter synchronisation than a conventional rack-based PLC delivers economically.
EtherCAT's sub-millisecond cycle times and simple daisy-chain wiring topology also reduce panel wiring complexity on machines with a high I/O density relative to their footprint. We typically deploy Beckhoff on manufacturing machine control and OEM equipment upgrades where motion control performance is the binding constraint.
CODESYS
CODESYS's vendor-independent IEC 61131-3 engineering environment runs across dozens of OEM controller brands, which makes it the right choice when the client's asset base isn't standardised on one PLC vendor — a common situation for equipment fleets assembled from multiple OEM suppliers over time, or for machine builders shipping to customers who each have their own platform preference.
We use CODESYS primarily for multi-vendor machine fleets and OEM equipment integration, where writing once to the IEC 61131-3 standard and deploying across different underlying hardware is a genuine maintenance advantage over re-engineering the same logic in each vendor's proprietary environment.
How we actually decide
Existing asset base first
If 80% of your plant is already on one vendor's hardware, that's usually the answer, regardless of what we'd choose on a blank slate.
Maintenance team competency second
A platform your own electricians can't support after we leave creates a dependency we try to avoid building.
Licensing model third
Per-tag, per-client, and unlimited licensing models produce very different total cost of ownership as a site scales — we model this before recommending.
Technical fit last, not first
Deterministic motion control, protocol support, and integration requirements narrow the field — but only after the first three questions are answered.